You came all the way here just to say thank you?

Calla's POV

I stared at him, about to ask what he meant, when footsteps came down the corridor and an older maid appeared in the doorway.

"Alpha. The head maid sent me for Calla."

Dominic clearly had no intention of explaining himself. He looked at me, his dark green eyes narrowing slightly, as though reassessing something that had turned out to be interesting.

"Go on. You'll find out eventually."

My injury healed quickly, and I asked the head maid for work in the greenhouse.

My reason was that I wanted to be further from the main house.

She said nothing, only handed me the key with a smile. "Do good work."

The glass greenhouse was warm and damp, earth and greenery tangled together. To anyone else it was a place where flowers were kept. But I'd followed my mother through herb beds since I was a child, and I could read plants by scent almost without thinking.

I finished the front shelves quickly and moved to the climate-controlled rack at the very back.

A plain, unremarkable plant caught my eye. Long narrow leaves, edges washed with faint silver, veins nearly transparent where the light struck them.

I had barely come close when I caught a familiar smell — faint, but it brought back the medicine in Damien's room that night so sharply that I stopped breathing for a moment.

I dug out the greenhouse's plant records.

On that page, the plant's name had been scraped away by hand; only half a blurred character remained. The places that should have held the cultivation date, the source, the intended use were covered over with black ink, layer on layer.

I was working at the ink with my fingernail when footsteps sounded behind me.

"Calla. Come with us."

I turned. Lora stood in the greenhouse doorway with two guards behind her. Her eyes dropped to the record book in my hands, and the corner of her mouth lifted.

"What do you want?"

Lora sneered. "I don't have to explain anything to you. When we reach the council hall, the Alpha and the Luna will decide what your mistake is worth."

The guards took an arm each and hauled me toward the main house.

I had no idea. Greenhouse, herbs, record book — all of it spun through my head. But I had only been arranging flowers. Only checking records.

Where, exactly, had I gone wrong?

They brought me into the council hall, where the air was heavier than I'd expected. Damien sat at the head of the room, Ella at his side.

When she saw me come in, Ella spoke, unhurried.

"Calla. Wolfsbane was found in your room, and you were seen going through the greenhouse's cultivation records without permission. Have you anything to say?"

"I didn't poison anyone."

"Then why was this packet of herbs in your room?"

She pointed at the paper packet on the table.

I looked at her and didn't answer. I had no idea how it had got there. And to start defending myself now would only give her more gaps to pick at.

"I don't think we can convict her yet."

A lazy voice spoke up. Dominic, leaning back in his chair, tapping one long finger against the table.

"Wolfsbane in her room is certainly suspicious. But suspicious isn't guilty. At the very least we have no proof she put it there, and no proof she had the chance to drug Damien."

Ronan frowned. "Are you speaking for her?"

"I simply dislike rushing to condemn a person on thin evidence." Dominic glanced at me, something probing in his eyes. "To begin with, no one hides the evidence in their own room. And who actually saw Lora take that thing out from under the bed frame? Was anyone else in the room besides her?"

Damien's gaze moved to him — surprise, perhaps, or something held down.

Ella's voice dropped. "Are you questioning Lora?"

Dominic gave a soft laugh. "I dislike watching a room full of people rush to convict someone on evidence that won't stand up."

Amusement flickered in the dark green eyes. "Besides—" he looked at me, "she's a human maid. Where would she get an accurate formula and dosage?"

Damien's complicated gaze came back to me at last. "Calla. If you're innocent, tell us what you know."

I nodded and set the record book on the table.

"I found something in the greenhouse. It may be connected to today."

Julien reached over and turned a few pages. "This? The name and the cultivation records have all been inked out. What are you trying to say?"

"Yes." I pointed at the page under the ink. "But this isn't ordinary crossing-out. Someone traced over the original letters again and again, and it left deep impressions in the paper. If you tilt it into the light, some of it can still be read."

Julien tilted the page as I'd said.

A moment later he read out the name that survived.

"Silverleaf."

"Silverleaf." I took it up. "It's on the innermost climate rack in the greenhouse. Today was the first time I'd ever seen it, and I recognized its scent."

I paused before going on.

"The drug Damien was given that night — besides wolfsbane and moonshade, there was another herb mixed in. Its scent is very close to silverleaf. Wolfsbane alone can't account for everything that happened that night."

Ronan looked at me, and his expression finally changed. "How do you know all this?"

"I've been learning to tell herbs apart from my mother since I was a child."

I turned the book to the handwritten note and set my fingertip on the page.

"And the cultivation records here have been altered by hand. It isn't only the plant's name that was inked out — the cultivation dates and the source were destroyed as well. Someone is deliberately hiding where this plant came from."

I did not tell them whose handwriting it was. Not yet. I didn't know what my mother had to do with this estate, or where the answer would drag me.

"Knowing herbs doesn't prove you didn't poison anyone," Ella said evenly. "It may prove the opposite. You understand these things better than an ordinary maid — which makes you more worth suspecting, not less."

"I understand." I met her eyes. "Which is why I have something else to show."

I turned to the room.

"The day Damien was drugged, I was working the shift I'd been assigned. By the time I reached the main house, he was already showing symptoms. I had no time to prepare a dose in advance, and no chance to tamper with anything in his room."

Lora cut in at once. "Shift records can be altered. Who can prove you're telling the truth?"

"I can."

Every head turned.

Julien set down the record book, his deep blue eyes untroubled. "I remember. I saw her on the stairs that night. The timing matches. She had no time."

Having said it, he lowered his head, as though recalling something, or covering something over.

And I did not know then that Julien had seen me three times that day: once on the stairs he spoke of, once in his dream that night, and once in the archive room.

Dominic raised an eyebrow, looked at Julien, then at Damien, and finally at Lora, standing behind Ella.

"If I remember rightly, you were the one insisting just now that Calla did it. And now?"

His voice wasn't loud, but there was a weight in it that couldn't be ignored.

Lora's body went visibly rigid.

Before she could speak, Ella took the words out of her mouth.

"She did it for the pack. The drugging has everyone on edge. If Lora went too far, it was out of worry."

She paused, then looked at Damien.

"She meant no harm. And even if she did misjudge the matter, no irreversible damage was done. Isn't that so?"

Damien's face was dark and he said nothing. He had no intention of letting it go at that.

Ella sighed and said, quietly, "Then let it be this. From today, Lora leaves my service and joins the ordinary maids. Let that be her lesson. And we close the matter here. Yes?"

I froze.

She had not explained where the packet of wolfsbane came from. She had not asked why Lora had searched my room with no evidence at all. One phrase — for the pack — and everything was smoothed flat.

Damien's brows drew hard together, but in the end he didn't object.

"Do as the Luna says."

Ronan was first to his feet, fastening the clasp of his cloak, and strode out.

Dominic gave me a long, meaningful look. "I've no objection. Though Miss Calla's knowledge of herbs has been an education."

Julien closed the record book and set it back on the table. "No objection either."

One by one they left. Ella looked at me on her way out, her expression still calm, nothing out of place in it. Lora followed with her head down.

When the last footsteps had faded down the corridor, only Damien and I were left in the great council hall.

The quiet was suddenly too complete.

I stood where I was, unsure whether I should leave first.

Damien spoke first. "What do you want as compensation?"

I stared at him. "Compensation?"

"Yes. You were wronged today. You may make one request." He paused. "Or, if Lora's punishment doesn't satisfy you—"

I shook my head slightly. Punishments handed out in that kind of game meant nothing to me.

I looked at him, and the familiar handwriting came back to me, and all the riddles my mother had left behind.

"I don't need any real compensation. I want to go to one place — the core archive room beneath the estate."